Michael Kleiner answers “At the end of the book there is a passage...”

Michelle asked this question about Beartown (Beartown, #1):

At the end of the book there is a passage that says "In ten years' time two of them will be playing professionally. One will be a dad. One will be dead." I must have missed something because I don't know who dies. Can anyone clarify for me? Thanks.

Michael Kleiner I just finished Beartown last night and still trying to get my emotions around it. And the comments here are a year or so before. As some reviews say,…moreI just finished Beartown last night and still trying to get my emotions around it. And the comments here are a year or so before. As some reviews say, it's not an easy book, hard when seeing the town's reaction to the rape. Not one parent--mother--of the hockey players had any empathy or approached Maya? Except for Bobo's mother, who as a nurse saw Maya in the hospital and believed her. Where are the connected dots that the Anderssons waited a week before reporting it to the police so it could infringe on the team winning the championship? Peter was invested in the success of the team and before the semifinal told an NHL scout how talented Kevin was and he was a good kid with good grades. Maya took a few days before telling her parents. It's interesting who the "moralists" were. Part of the friendship of Kevin and Benji was Benji was the enforcer on the ice protecting the superstar. He tells Kevin at the end, "remember I'm the only one you can never lie to." When Maya and Ana show up at the party, Benji leaves and tells Kevin "how can you invite 15 year olds to the party?" He knows Kevin best. He doesn't join the team in supporting Kevin. Benji turns out to be gay--not that an enforcer can't be gay--but given the macho of the sport and the view homosexuality is immoral. Amat says the hell with the loyalty to the team, loyalty to the truth is more important and he knows what he saw. Before he was promoted to juniors, he was bullied by the juniors as the immigrant child of the woman who cleaned the rink. All of a sudden when he scores in the semifinal, he is "accepted." Bobo supports his new friend and neighbor Amat when the team comes after Amat. Bobo is respectful of relationships with women. Benji destroys the bathroom at school so they don't think Maya did it. "Your mistake Maya is that you still think Kevin is my best friend." Zacharius breaks into the school to scrub "bitch" off Maya's locker as his "silent protest." Kevin's mother ends up not believing her son and the only one to visit Maya. After all the talk about loyalty to Beartown, the other players and parents go off to Hed. The four good people stay in Beartown. Because of Benji being the pothead and testing the limits and David leaving the puck and watch at a grave, Benji is the obvious one to think died and that's sad. Zacharius makes sense to die, except at the end his friendship with Amat is rekindled. If Amat and Benji become pros, their friendship with Bobo remains because of the scene at Kevin's party where in 10 years time (I forgot all the references to 10 years in time, but remember the references to the future) Bobo and Amat will remember when they became friends. Which could mean Bobo became a pro, except he wasn't talented enough. At the beginning of the book, it says someone goes into the forest and kills themself and "this is the story of how we got to this point." I may have to go back and reread that. Not a great way to start but it created the mystery of who it will be. Despite the preparation, I couldn't see Maya killing Kevin--for which she would have been arrested. She needed to scare him as much as he had scared her, "so you can live the rest of your life afraid of the dark, too." The ending is interesting, too, as Kevin is the one married with the pregnant wife in front of an rink that he pays no mind to while the singing superstar enters for a concert and he recognizes Maya and it "freezes' him. That would imply Kevin didn't make the NHL and left hockey. And maybe he reformed himself. Part of me hoped Amat and Maya got married, that a friendship developed as a result of him giving her the guitar, the "only one she ever plays now." Maybe they did, since now I know there's a trilogy.(less)

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